Haunted
by El loopy
Summary: [BBC version] "A place does not need its own ghosts to be haunted, Miss Halcombe, nor murder." He stopped in front of her. "It can borrow them." He examined her again in a way that felt like he was inside her mind, casually turning over items in jumbled boxes. "I think, maybe, you just gave it some of your own?" Side Marian x Fosco. Oneshot.


Haunted

She had made a mistake. More than a mistake. A colossal error. Something that had seemed so small, that had been nothing, merely the agreement to continue as normal, and it had torn their world, leaving them with the tattered shreds of what they had once known.

The iron waters of Blackwater Lake sat before her in judgement, reflecting her mood as though flaunting her error. Her feet had carried her here once more, when everything had risen up within her with such an anguish she thought she would burst. She had run through the woods, letting the twigs lash out at her, letting her energy ebb, until she had no choice but to slow. Somehow she always seemed to return to the lake.

"Is it to be like this forever?" she asked with a break in her voice. The lake said nothing back, just looked at her, pressing the pain closer to her heart. The doubts swirled on the surface. Her choices. Her motivations.

"I should never have convinced her to come here. I should never have encouraged her to marry that..." Words failed her. There was nothing strong enough in her armoury that she was willing to say out loud. Whilst technically alone she couldn't help the feeling that the lake was listening, watching. She glanced behind her but there was no one. Her skin crawled a little.

The wind stirred the water and it rippled in laughter at her.

"He hurts her." A statement in anger, rising up from within. It suffocated the distress in its rush to escape, making her voice ring out clear. The water absorbed it, amplified it, threw it back at her. "He _hurts_ her." Whispered now, with a furious harshness, a bite that bit her as much as the air. Teeth sinking into her soul. She had done this. She had hidden the truth. She had taken away the choice.

For a moment she imagined Walter stood with her by the lake's edge. She tilted her head to him, away from the water and spoke as though they were together again in the garden on a bench, before it had all shattered. Their future was like glass in her hands, that had once been whole, brimming with possibilities, but now embedded shards deep into her flesh, drawing blood. A constant pain that she could not ignore. An unrelenting ache of 'if only's. "She cannot trust me, not like she used to, and... _he,"_ she could not bring herself to say his name or the title of husband, "...does not like me around her." Marian's forehead wrinkled in distress as she spoke to Walter with saddened eyes. "I don't know what to do."

The autumn breeze tugged a leaf off one of the surrounding trees, all bare but for those few survivors clinging on, and dropped it in the water. Marian's eyes slipped away from the imaginary Walter and followed its course as it drifted and fell. Ripples expanded from its stilled form as it rested on the surface. A giant teardrop of sympathy. She moved to the very edge of the water and crouched beside it. Slowly she reached out and plucked up the leaf, spinning the dead stem between her fingers. Tears burned her eyes and choked her throat, but she would not cry.

"Maybe if I left..." It was a fleeting thought. The selfishness of it made her insides flinch. She could not, would not, abandon her sister here alone, and yet within her burned the overwhelming desire to run.

Marian had been brought up knowing that her choices in life would always be limited. As a single woman of no fortune, dependent entirely on the goodwill of her Father's second family, she had been forced to endure domesticity. It was a weight on her chest. Shackles on her ankles. Hers was not the temperament suited to a domestic life. She had fought against it, against the men who said it had to be this way, who told her that she could not be who she wanted. She had hammered her fists on the proverbial door that was closed to her, and had achieved nothing but bloodied hands, pricked with splinters. When it felt like she was going to drown under the need to escape she used to stand on the coastline, the beach under her feet, and feel the salt-stained wind whisper to her. She was not able to see colours in the wind, like her sister, but she did see possibilities. She had dipped her fingers in the sea and dreamed of the worlds that touched that same element. She had promised herself that one day she would see them, even if she had to build the boat from the splinters in her hands.

Here, in this landlocked hell, there was no sea, no ways to hope, and so she felt the weight push down on her a little more each day. Every morning she woke up and felt another part of her soul had been crushed to dust and blown away by unforgiving winds.

She pushed the tears back, but one slipped out. She would not cry.

The water gave her only its smooth icy stare in response. So calm. So cold. So unlike the sea. Without thinking Marian felt herself reach out to the water. She wanted to feel just how cold. Would it be ice enough to make it hurt? It would be welcome to feel the physical pain rather than the emotional one. Her hand might go numb. She could numb her whole body. Numb her mind…

"Miss Halcombe!"

Marian blinked, coming out of her trance, her hand still outstretched over the water. Behind her Fosco stood, a frown marring his swarthy countenance.

"Why have you come here?" he glanced over her shoulder at Blackwater Lake and a shudder entered his voice. "This place…it is not right."

Marian stood quickly, back straight and defiant, turning her face to the side so he could not see the tears.

"I didn't think that you of all people would be scared by a few ghost stories, Count." She tried to inject some light-hearted humour into her voice, as though teasing. She could feel Fosco's eyes on her back. "You know there is no real truth in the jest that it would be a good place for a murder."

With each word she felt her voice growing stronger, the grief retreating, until she was able to turn with the confidence that her despair was masked once again. He was watching her with an intensity that made her mind stumble as though tripping over its own feet. His mouth turned into a smile, a humourless chuckle escaping as he glanced down and back, making steady steps towards her. Marian stiffened her spine, her mouth thinning into a line as she steeled herself against him.

"A place does not need its own ghosts to be haunted, Miss Halcombe, nor murder." He stopped in front of her. "It can borrow them." He examined her again in a way that felt like he was inside her mind, casually turning over items in jumbled boxes. "I think, maybe, you just gave it some of your own?"

She allowed her lips to twist up into a smile. "If I did then they were mine to do so."

He seemed like he would say more but thought better of it and instead stepped to one side and inclined his head back towards the woods.

"Allow me to accompany you home."

It was not a request, and the word home made her insides shudder with a cold disgust, but she did as she was supposed to, setting off at a defiantly sharp pace. She could feel his amused smile pressing against her back as he allowed her the distance, before eventually closing it. Their feet crunched through the dead leaves, the only sound between them. His presence next to her was an ache she could not relieve. She was aware of every place his arm almost brushed her own as he matched his pace to hers. She knew she could not trust him and yet she felt her self-control tremble whenever he was near, like he was now. He tore her in two. This man who she could allow to devour her if she were prepared to stop hammering on the door of the future she wanted. This man who told her he would take her to Italy and show her the treasures there. This man who offered her an escape, if she would sell him her soul.

"Why did you come here Miss Halcombe?" His question broke the stillness between them, diverting her thoughts, to her relief.

Marian glanced back over her shoulder for a last glimpse of the cold, unforgiving stretch of water through the trees.

"I'm not sure," she admitted, "there seems to be an attraction to it that draws my feet back to its shores…" She cut herself off abruptly and flashed her gaze to the man at her side. Fosco met her gaze with one so sharp it was as though he slammed a dagger through her thoughts, pinning one for a closer examination.

"I would be careful of that attraction, Miss Halcombe," he murmured with a voice so low it was both a warning and a caress, "one day it may lead you somewhere you aren't willing to go."


End file.
